Darkness and Daylight Part 23

"Splendid!" cried Edith; "and you married them, didn't you? Tell us all about it; how the bride looked, and every thing."

"I cannot gratify you in that respect," returned Richard. "There was a veil of darkness between us, and I could see nothing distinctly, but I knew she was very slight, so much so, indeed, that I was sorry afterward that I did not question her age."

"A runaway match from the Seminary, perhaps," suggested Arthur, in tones so steady as to astonish himself.

"I have sometimes thought so since," was Richard's reply, "but as nothing of the kind was ever known to have occurred, I may have been mistaken."

"But the names?" cried Edith, eagerly, "you could surely tell by that, unless they were feigned."

"Which is hardly probable," Richard rejoined, "though they might as well have been for any good they do me now. I was too unhappy then, too much wrapped up in my own misfortunes to care for what was pa.s.sing around me, and though I gave them a certificate, keeping myself a memorandum of the same, I soon forgot their names entirely."

"But the copy," chimed in Edith, "that will tell. Let's hunt it up. I'm so interested in these people, and it seems so funny that you should have married them. I wonder where they are. Have you never heard a word from them?"

"Never, since that night," said Richard; "and what is more unfortunate still for an inquisitive mother Eve, like you, the copy which I kept was burned by a servant who destroyed it with sundry other business papers, on one of her cleaning house days."

"Ah-h," and Arthur drew a long, long breath, which prompted Edith to ask if be were tired.

"You're not as much interested as I am," she said. "I do wish I knew who the young bride was--so small and so fair. Was she as tall as Nina?" and she turned to Richard, who replied,

"I can hardly judge the height of either. Stand up, Snow Drop, and let me feel if you are as tall as the bride of ten years ago."

"Yes, Nina is the taller of the two," said Richard, as he complied with his request and stood under his hand. "I have often thought of this girl-wife and her handsome boy-husband, doubting whether I did right to marry them, but the young man who accompanied them went far toward rea.s.suring me that all was right. They were residents of the village, he said, and having seen me often in town, had taken a fancy to have me perform the ceremony, just for the novelty of the thing."

"It's queer you never heard of them afterward," said Edith; while Nina, looking up in the blind man's face, rejoined,

"YOU DID IT THEN?"

"Nina," said Arthur ere Richard could reply, "it is time we were going home; there is Sophy with the shawl which you forgot." And he pointed toward Sophy coming through the garden, with a warm shawl tucked under her arm, for the dew was heavy that night and she feared lest Nina should take cold.

"Nina won't go yet; she isn't ready," persisted the capricious maiden. "Go till I call you," and having thus summarily dismissed Soph, the little lady resumed the seat from which she had arisen, and laying her head on Richard's, whispered to him softly, "CAN'T YOU SCRATCH IT OUT?"

"Scratch what out?" he asked; and Nina replied,

"Why, IT; what you've been talking about. Nothing ever came of it but despair and darkness."

"I do not know what you mean," Richard said, and as Arthur did not volunteer any information, but sat carelessly sc.r.a.ping his thumb nail with a pen-knife, Edith made some trivial remark which turned the channel of Nina's thoughts, and she forgot to urge the request that "it should be scratched out."

"Nina'll go now," she said, after ten minutes had elapsed, and calling Soph, Arthur was soon on his way home, hardly knowing whether he was glad or sorry that every proof of his early error was forever destroyed.

CHAPTER XX.

THE DECISION.

The summer was over and gone; its last breath had died away amid the New England hills, and the mellow October days had come, when in the words of America's sweetest poetess,

"The woods stand bare and brown, And into the lap of the South land, The flowers are blowing down."

Over all there was that dreamy, languid haze, so common to the Autumn time, when the distant hills are bathed in a smoky light and all things give token of decay. The sun, round and red, as the October sun is wont to be, shone brightly upon Collingwood, and looked cheerily into the room where Edith Hastings sat, waiting apparently for some one whose tardy appearance filled her with impatience. In her hand she held a tiny note received the previous night, and as she read for the twentieth time the few lines contained therein, her blushes deepened on her cheek, and her blank eyes grew softer and more subdued in their expression.

"Edith," the note began, "I must see you alone. I have something to say to you which a third person cannot hear. May I come to Collingwood to-morrow at three o'clock, P.M.? In haste, Arthur St.

Claire."

The words were very cold, but to Edith they contained a world of meaning. She knew she was beloved by Arthur St. Claire. Dr.

Griswold had told her so. Grace had told her so. Nina had told her so, while more than all his manner had told her so repeatedly, and now HE would tell her so himself and had chosen a time when Richard and Victor were both in Boston, as the one best adapted to the interview. Edith was like all other maidens of eighteen, and her girlish heart fluttered with joy as she thought what her answer would be, but not at first,--not at once, lest she seem too anxious. She'd make him wait a whole week, then see how he felt.

He deserved it all for his weak vacillation. If he loved her why hadn't he told her before! She didn't believe there was such a terrible impediment in the way. Probably he had sworn never to marry any one save Nina, but her insanity was certainly a sufficient reason for his not keeping the oath. Dr. Griswold was peculiar,--over-nice in some points, and Arthur had been wholly under his control, becoming morbidly sensitive to the past, and magnifying every trivial circ.u.mstance into a mountain too great to be moved.

This was Edith's reasoning as she sat waiting that October afternoon for Arthur, who came ere long, looking happier, more like himself than she had seen him since the memorable day when she first met Nina. Arthur had determined to do right, to tell without reserve the whole of his past history to Edith Hastings, and the moment he reached this decision half his burden was lifted from his mind. It cost him a bitter struggle thus to decide, and lest his courage should give way, he had asked for an early interview. It was granted, and without giving himself time to repent he came at once and stood before the woman who was dearer to him than his life. Gladly would he have died could he thus have blotted out the past and made Edith his wife, but he could not, and he had come to tell her so.

Never had she been more beautiful than she was that afternoon. Her dress of crimson merino contrasted well with her clear dark complexion. Her magnificent hair, arranged with far more care than usual, was wound in many a heavy braid around her head, while, half-hidden amid the silken bands, and drooping gracefully behind one ear, was a single white rose-bud, mingled with scarlet blossoms of verbena; the effect adding greatly to her beauty.

Excitement lent a brighter sparkle to her brilliant eyes, and a richer bloom to her glowing cheeks, and thus she sat waiting for Arthur St. Claire, who felt his heart grow cold and faint as he looked upon her, and knew her charms were not for him. She detected his agitation, and as a kitten plays with a captured mouse, torturing it almost to madness, so she played with him ere suffering him to reach the point. Rapidly she went from one subject to another, dragging him with her whether he would or not, until at last as if suddenly remembering herself, she turned her shining eyes upon him, and said, "I have talked myself out, and will now give you a chance. You wrote that you wished to see me."

But for this direct allusion to his note, Arthur would a.s.suredly have gone away, leaving his errand untold. But he could not do so now. She was waiting for him to speak, and undoubtedly wondering at his silence. Thrice he attempted to articulate, but his tongue seemed paralyzed, and reeking with perspiration, he sat unable to move until she said again, "Is it of Nina you would tell me?"

Then the spell was broken, Nina was the sesame which unlocked his powers of speech; and wiping the large drops from his forehead, he answered,

"Yes, Edith, of Nina, of myself, of you. Edith, you know how much I love you, don't you, darling?"

The words were apparently wrung from him greatly against his will.

They were not what he intended to say, and he would have given worlds to have recalled them, but they were beyond his reach, and the very walls of the room seemed to echo in thunder tones,

"You know how much I love you, don't you, darling?"

Yes, she did know; he knew she did by the glance she gave him back, and laying his head upon the table, he neither moved nor spoke until a footstep glided to his side, and a soft hand pressed his burning brow, while a voice, whose tones drifted him far, far back to the sea of darkness and doubt where he had so long been bravely buffetting the billows, whispered to him,

"Arthur, I DO know, or rather believe you love me. You would not tell me an untruth, but I do not understand why it should make you so unhappy."

He did not answer her at once, but retained within his own the little hand which trembled for a moment like an imprisoned bird and then grew warm and full of vigorous life just as Edith was, standing there before him. What should he do? What could he do?

Surely, never so dark an hour had gathered round him, or one so fraught with peril. Like lightning his mind took in once more the whole matter as it was. Griswold was dead. On his grave the autumn leaves were falling and the nightly vigils by that grave had been of no avail. Nina could never comprehend, the written proof was burned, Richard had forgotten, there was nothing in the way save his CONSCIENCE and that would not be silent. Loudly it whispered to the anguished man that happiness could not be secured by trampling on Nina's rights; that remorse would mix itself with every joy and at the last would drive him mad.

"You mistake me, I cannot," he began to say, but Edith did not heed it, for a sound without had caught her ear, telling her that Richard had unexpectedly returned, and Victor was coming for her.

There was an expression of impatience on Edith's face, as to Victor's summons she replied, "Yes, yes, in a moment;" but Arthur breathed more freely as, rising to his feet, he said, "I cannot now say all I wish to say, but meet me, to-morrow at this hour in the Deering Woods, near the spot where the mill brook falls over those old stones. You know the place. We went there once with-- NINA."

He wrung her hand, pitying her more than he did himself, for he knew how little she suspected the true nature of what he intended to tell her.

"G.o.d help us both, me to do right, and her to bear it," was his mental prayer, as he left her at the door of the room where Richard was waiting for her.

There were good and bad angels lugging at Arthur's heart as he hastened across the fields where the night was falling, darker, gloomier, than ever it fell before. Would it be a deadly sin to marry Edith Hastings? Would Nina be wronged if he did? were questions which the bad spirits kept whispering in his ear, and each time that he listened to these questionings, he drifted further and farther away from the right, until by the time his home was reached he hardly knew himself what his intentions were.

Very bright were the lights shining in the windows of his home, and the fire blazed cheerfully in the library, where Nina, pale and fair as a white pond lily, had ordered the supper table to be set, because she thought it would please him, and where, with her golden curls tucked behind her ears, and a huge white ap.r.o.n on, she knelt before the glowing coals, making the nicely-b.u.t.tered toast he liked so well. Turning toward him her childish face as he came in, she said,

"See--Nina's a nice little housekeeper. Wouldn't it be famous if we could live alone, you and I?"

Arthur groaned inwardly, but made her no reply. Sitting down in his arm-chair, he watched her intently as she made his tea, removed her ap.r.o.n, brushed her curls, and then look her seat at the table, bidding him do the same. Mechanically he obeyed, affecting to eat for her sake, while his eyes were constantly fastened upon her face. Supper being over and the table removed, he continued watching her intently as she flitted about the room, now perching herself upon his knee, calling him "her good boy,"

now holding a whispered conversation with Miggie, who, she fancied, was there, and again singing to herself a plaintive song she had sung to Dr. Griswold. When it drew near her bedtime she went to the window, from which the curtain was thrown back, and looking out upon the blackness of the night, said to Arthur,